November 30, 2020
Dr. Williamson wrote an op-ed piece about the effect of the pandemic on relationships based on her recent publication in Psychological Science. The op-ed was published in various newspapers, including the Dallas Morning News, the San Antonio Express-News, the Austin American-Statesman, and the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
November 5, 2020
Dr. Williamson has published an article about the early effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on relationships in Psychological Science. The COVID-19 pandemic has called upon couples to spend extended amounts of time together and rely primarily on each other for support during a major stressor that has upended nearly every aspect of daily life. In this study, individuals involved in a relationship were assessed before the start of the pandemic and again two times during the early stages of the pandemic to determine how their relationship changed. Overall, the results of this large, national study indicate that on average people did not change in how satisfied they were with their relationship, but did become more forgiving and less blaming of their partner’s negative behaviors by attributing them less to their partner’s internal characteristics. These results were true irrespective of multiple characteristics, including demographics of the partners, pre-existing characteristics of the relationship, and negative experiences resulting from the pandemic, but did vary based on couple functioning during the pandemic.
Read more about this study here.
July 19, 2020
Dr. Williamson has a new article in press at the Journal of Family Psychology: The development of communication behavior over the newlywed years
June 25, 2020
Earlier this month Dr. Williamson and colleagues Dr. Neff and Dr. Gleason presented a webinar for the UT College of Natural Sciences about ‘Maintaining Household Relationships & Overcoming Conflict in Quarantine.’ You can view the recording here.
May 4, 2020
Junior Biology major Katelyn Golden has spent the last year in the Williamson Lab completing a Connecting Research Experience for the UT Bridging Disciplines Program, where she is completing a certificate in Social Inequality, Health, and Policy. Katelyn’s research project focused on “Longitudinal relationships between newlywed communication about health issues and BMI.” She recently presented this work in a virtual BDP poster session.
May 1, 2020
Undergraduate Psychology major Maria Mohamed completed her Honors Thesis in the Williamson Lab this year. She examined “Marital Satisfaction and Communication among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Couples” and presented her work at a University-wide virtual poster session.
April 8, 2020
We are excited to announce that two new graduate students will be joining the lab in the Fall; Yunzhi Zheng and Nick Chen. We look forward to welcoming you both to UT!
February 28, 2020
Graduate student Thao Nguyen presented her work at SPSP. This paper was recently published in Personal Relationships.
February 22, 2020
A first-authored paper by graduate student Thao Nguyen is now in press at Personal Relationships. This paper is part of the journal’s Special Issue on Relationship Science and the Credibility Revolution, in which we submitted a pre-registered analysis plan, received an in principle acceptance of the manuscript based on the expected theoretical contributions, then collected the data and completed the analyses and the manuscript. The paper examines the role of stress mindset in partner’s provision of support to each other.
January 10, 2020
Dr. Williamson has been named one of two Consulting Editors of the Year for the Journal of Family Psychology.
